Emily Dickinson And Nathaniel Hawthorne English Literature Essay

American poet, Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, on Dec. 10, 1830. She is considered as one of the greatest poets in the English language. She was raised in a family of strong puritan beliefs and the protestant religion and the education that she received influenced his later works. Although, contrary to established custom, Emily Dickinson received an education that previously was reserved for men only. Soon she decided to withdraw from the world, maintaining contact only with a few friends. At twenty-three, Dickinson was aware of his own vocation almost mystical, and at thirty was being away from the world at all, almost monastic. She perceived very well the images, the sensations and the concepts of the Nature and like Cynthia Hogue says in hes article How(e) to Read Dickinson (W)riting Nature ¿½She had such an ¿½unexplainable eye,¿½ . . . as she persisted in her ruminative observations of the nature she could ¿½see,¿½ ¿½hear,¿½ observe, almost like an Impressionist, as light changed the way Nature looked¿½. Most of the Dickinson’s poems are written in a few verses that are combinations of three or four feet, in short stanzas. The themes she uses are death, faith, immortality, nature, domesticity and with the images and metaphors that she creates in the poems, she also enters in others topics. Some of her poems are the representation of the Nature and others are the representation of the human life.

One of the poems that represent the Nature is the poem 328 ¿½A Bird came down the Walk¿½, in which she represents the actions of the animals in the Nature. In the first stanza, we can see that Dickinson is describing an action of a bird, ¿½A Bird came down the Walk¿½ (328/1) ¿½He bit an Angle worm in halves¿½ (328/3) ¿½And ate the fellow, raw,¿½(328/4), a bird that comes from his fly to eat a worm. Then he connects the second stanza with ¿½And then he drank Dew¿½ (328/5), describing the act of the animal life, first eating and then drinking. After that the bird sees a beetle but he let him pass ¿½To let a Beetle pass-¿½(328/8), here Dickinson is describing a friendly encounter between two animals, a bird and a beetle. Normally, the birds eat insects but the bird has already eats a worm so there is no conflict between them. In these two stanzas we can see a part of the cyclical life of the animals and how a beetle and a bird life in harmony in the Nature. In the third stanza Dickinson describes the movement of the head of the bird, first describing the eyes and then the head ¿½He glanced with rapid eyes,¿½ (328/9) ¿½He stirred his Velvet Head.¿½(328/12). In the final two stanzas we can see how he bird unroll his feathers to take fly through the ocean to go home in the noon. ¿½And he unrolled his feathers,¿½ (328/15), ¿½And rowed him softer Home¿½ (328/16) ¿½Than Oars divide the Ocean,¿½(328/17), ¿½Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,¿½(328/20). In this poem Dickinson make us see and imagine the beauty of one bird in the Nature, the actions of the animals in the Nature and that she likes the Nature.

In this other poem, ¿½Apparently with no surprise¿½ (1625), Dickinson is describing the Nature with a metaphor.

Apparently with no surprise

To any happy Flower

The Frost beheads it at its play¿½

In accidental power¿½

The blonde Assassin passes on¿½

The Sun proceeds unmoved

To measure off another Day

For an Approving God.

In the first stanza she is describing that the summer ends and that the cold of the autumn comes. The flowers that were happy because of the summer now are going to be frozen. We could think that Dickinson is describing that the life of a woman is coming to an end, because the woman is becoming older. The word ¿½flower¿½ is the woman and the meaning of the word ¿½Frost¿½ is that the dead is coming. Also, when Dickenson says ¿½Apparently with no surprise¿½ is that the woman already knows that the dead is coming because is the life cycle. In the second stanza, ¿½The blonde Assassin passes on¿½

we could think that there is other reason that is killing her, at first the word ¿½frost¿½ to say that she is getting old and now the word ¿½blond Assasin¿½ that may refer to a disease, and with the ¿½The Sun proceeds unmoved¿½ that she is unhappy. Finally, ¿½To measure off another Days¿½, ¿½For an Approving Go¿½ could mean that the woman will be sad waiting for her dead until the God approve that she can die. In this poem Dickinson describes the dead of a woman, may be a woman that is very close to her, using the metaphor with the Nature.

In this next poem, however, Dickinson talks about a problem that is in the civilization from time ago and in our time too. The problem is the challenges between the science and the church.

“Faith” is a fine invention

When Gentlemen can see-

But Microscopes are prudent

In an Emergency.

In this poem she express the challenge that is between the religion and the science. In the moment when Dickinson was alive is when the science starts to get more power and in this poem Dickinson make laugh of the faith that the people had, saying that the faith is an invention to believe in something and to do not have fear to something. Also she says that to solve the problems you do not have to believe in faith, because the faith will do not solve it. This faith is still in our society and I think that it will remain for several years.

Emily Dickinson as we can see was an extrodirnary poet who wrote about nature, faith, death… and that with the nature she created metaphors to talk about others topics too. She was one of the most original poetic voices in the use language.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in Salem. He was an American novelist, born into a family of Puritan tradition and his life and his work were marked by the Calvinist tradition. His most famous work was The Scarlet Letter.

The Scarlet Letter gives a true portrayal of the seventeenth-century Puritan society and how that society lived surrounded by moral prejudices, faults and punishment. The author makes a severe criticism of society and to do that he tells story of a woman who portrays incredibly how these moral and religious prejudices were impregnated in the minds of people of the time and that how any little mishap or accident that they had was taken as a test and Hester in the novel has to pay his sin going through the worst circumstances.